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A Ducking Curse

Ducked Again!

By The Bantering WelshmanPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Lena and Liza are growing fast and making loads of... fun (photo by Jessica Lynn Humphreys)

Lena and Liza, the offending ducklings from No Ducking Way published last month, are growing into their quacks and feathers, but my poor wife has paid the consequences of purchasing the web-footed farm critters before we were ready.

In No Ducking Way, I explain how Jessica attempted to win my favor for her irrational and untimely decision to purchase ducks by forcing me to succumb to their downy cuteness. Unfortunately for her, she took a nasty spill while trying to retrieve the little quakers from the elevated perch where she stored them and cracked her knee. As a result of her injury, she would have to stay off her leg for two weeks, which forced her to take a hiatus from her work at a medical practice an hour away.

Jessica following doctor's orders after a painful knee injury (photo by M.S. Humphreys)

Normally, a couple weeks working from home wouldn’t be a problem; in the more than 18 months Jessica worked there, she never asked off from work except for her scheduled vacation time and her office established work-from-home infrastructure more than a year ago as a result of the pandemic. She certainly put in time from home after normal business hours before and there was plenty she could do from home during normal business hours to contribute now. Unfortunately, "Mr. MBA," a smug little man, made practice manager five months earlier, wanted to put Jessica on family medical leave instead, though she would be back to work by the time her FMLA paperwork was complete. Regardless, there has long been a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on at that office anyway and this, the final straw, caused her to resign from her position so she lost her job.

Though she needed crutches to get around on for a couple weeks, Jessica now had no reason to be away from home 10 hours a day so that meant she could spend more time taking care of our feather-babies. The food we bought for these ducklings must be laced with gamma-rays because these two hulked-out in less than two weeks. Big fat ducks mean big fat poops and I wasn’t going to let our guest bathroom get all ducked-up so now part of my garage is Fort Duckworthy (provisional).

Fort Duckworthy (provisional) (photo by M.S. Humphreys)

Fort Duckworthy has its own small, filtered pond for tasty minnows and fresh watercress picked from the creek. An old litter box serves as a comfy bed, and they have 16 square-feet of space to waddle about. Plenty of room for them to grow until the permanent Fort Duckworthy can be built outside near the water. Plenty of room for them to grow, which means plenty of room for them to poop and they poop plenty.

Jessica has taken to cleaning the Quak-n-poop twins pen at least three times per day, sometimes more. Occasionally, when I’m around to help, we’ll take the little swimmers back up to the jacuzzi tub so they can get in some laps. She is always gloved-up and washes her hands thoroughly after each cleaning, but salmonella are tiny little bacteria and it only takes one... hundred or so to cause an infection.

That’s right, salmonella! It isn’t life threatening, though Jessica might argue differently under its influence, regularly swearing that she is dying, or an alien is trying to tear out of her abdomen. It certainly isn’t a pleasant infection, I’m aware. However, now because of these ducking demons that I didn’t want from the start, I’m nursing my sick, unemployed wife and I’m the primary caregiver of the cursed twins, Lena and Liza.

Lena and Liza in their 16 sqft temporary indoor lodging (photo by M.S. Humphreys)

In all seriousness, Lena and Liza are growing fast. In the next couple of weeks, I will build an expandable poultry pen near the creek. Lena and Liza will be the first inhabitants of the permanent Fort Duckworthy, though we hope to add more fowl in time. When they are old enough, we’ll let Lena and Liza waddle about the property during the day, but being the meaty flightless birds that they are, they will have to be secured back in the fort in the evening to protect them from the many predators on the prowl around our country home at night.

I didn’t want them, and they are causing a lot of ducking problems at the moment, but as our first farm critters, I’m happy that Lena and Liza have joined the family. Jessica too, once she regains her constitution, will be happy for them again soon.

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About the Creator

The Bantering Welshman

M.S. Humphreys is The Bantering Welshman, an East Tennessee native, author, journalist, storyteller, marketing specialist, husband and step father. https://www.instagram.com/thebanteringwelshman/ and http://www.banteringwelshman.com

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